PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT

Self-care for professionals

Mental health month - time to take care of yourself

Professional demands and the workload seems to be constantly increasing. At the same time fewer and fewer opportunities to switch off and recharge your batteries are available. This can lead to feelings of stress and excessive demands, frustration, disinterest, cynicism and ultimately to burnout.

The problem is not the one-off stress situation, but the lack of real breaks to recover. Health science speaks of “chronic stress”, which can lead to considerable physical, psychological and social impairments. 

If you forget your needs or do not take care of them, you are risking with the results of increased stress – burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma. Some of the symptoms you might experience are: increased emotional load, feeling alienated in one's own life, lack of achievement, decreased self-esteem, experience of not being able to influence one's work and private life.

Therefore it is important to recognize overwhelm an early stage and develop appropriate counter-strategies. One of these measures is the so-called self-care approach. There is research evidence that well-being at work strengthens other areas of life and increases the effectiveness in helping your clients. This is best achieved by proactively taking care of you.

Self-care is a spectrum of knowledge, skills and attitudes and encompasses the person with all their life circumstances. It is much more than “just” exercising, eating healthy and getting plenty of sleep. If you are professionally helping others, take this day for yourself to find out something what is important exactly for you to be able to take care and protect yourself in work situations.

“Youth workers and the threat of vicarious trauma in the professional field. Integrative self-care practice training as an approach for supporting resilience” (2023-1-EE01-KA220-YOU-000159097) co-financed by ERASMUS+